Mead’s Ridiculous Linkage Argument

Unhappily for the Obama administration, the best way for the U.S. to hasten the arrival of a durable cease fire in Gaza is to promise a more robust and hawkish policy in the rest of the region. The Israelis will be more willing to make concessions on a Gaza cease fire if they believe that the U.S. will back them more effectively against Iran, and the Saudis and Egyptians are more likely to give ground in Gaza if the U.S. offers real support in the rest of the region [bold mine-DL].

Mead’s argument is just another version of the “linkage” thesis that makes no sense whatever. Pursuing a “more robust and hawkish policy” in other parts of the region may be welcomed by some U.S. clients, but it isn’t going to change their position on anything related to Gaza. There’s no reason that it would. The Saudi and Egyptian governments hate Hamas for similar reasons, and they’re not interested in “giving ground” on this point. Doing more of what the Saudis want in, say, Syria, might make their government cease its whining on that issue, but it isn’t going to affect their position on other issues. It will just confirm that the U.S. can be pressured into caving to clients’ preferences. The Israeli government would be even less inclined to make concessions on Gaza if the U.S. chose to align its Iran policy more closely with theirs, because that would prove to Netanyahu that the U.S. can eventually be “moved” to see things his way with enough persistent intransigence and complaining. Mead isn’t urging a “more robust and hawkish policy” in the region because that has any chance of producing a durable cease-fire in Gaza, but because that is what he always urges the administration to do, and so he is trying to come up with some new excuse for why the U.S. should follow his typically horrible advice. It won’t lead to a durable cease-fire, since it completely fails to address any of the reasons for the recurring conflict between the two sides, but it will help to drag the U.S. into other conflicts elsewhere in the region.

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13 Responses to Mead’s Ridiculous Linkage Argument

All this “hawking” vis-a-vis Russia, the Mid-East, etc … Is it merely unintelligence or is it some kind of malevolent design (by which I mean ulterior economic and/or geopolitical motives)? I have yet to see someone make reasonable sense of it all.

Oh Brother another stupid if we use more bombs, opps, Leadership!, the more our enemies will submit to our and Israel will!

The longer the current Gaza invasion continues, the more I grow agnostic to the battle. I really don’t care who wins the battle because neither side is going to lay down a knockout punch so the battles will continue.

I’ve never understood the popularity of Mead’s writing, although much of his criticism of “blue state” models is genuinely interesting. Unfortunately, the only blue state model he isn’t interested in critically evaluating is the Washingnton Consensus.

A few years ago, he went on a trip to India and Pakistan and he wrote up a blog post that basically said, “I don’t really know that much about this part of the world, but trust us, trust American leadership, we will get it right!” I’ve looked for it occasionally and don’t know if I just can’t find it or if it’s no longer up as a post.

This is off-topic but I can’t figure out where to put this excerpt, so please forgive me if it’s out of place. I don’t necessarily agree with it but the notion of pulling back and playing hard to get is interesting:

” It is obvious we need the U.S. and the American imperial system. The period from 1945 to perhaps 1980 was good for the “free world” when there was the Soviet threat. But after the Cold War, the U.S. was losing industrial might and tended to compensate by using military action. This produced negative reactions everywhere and produced the defeat or disaster in Iraq in the George W. Bush era.

When Bush was in power, Americans became — by pretending to be so militarily powerful — completely repulsive. But as soon as they admit that their power is waning, people on the periphery of the empire can start worrying about a world without the U.S. Army. And what they imagine is not very pleasant. Once the U.S. acknowledges that it is not the ruler of the world, once it acts reasonably, then many, many nations will realize that they need the U.S. This is the paradox.

Once the U.S. admits this, the decline in America’s hard economic and military power will produce a rise in its soft power.” – Emmanuel Todd

Hamas on the other hand is elated by its success in temporarily but significantly hampering operations at Ben Gurion Airport (arguably the most significant single Palestininan tactical accomplishment since the 1948 War).

Notice he isn’t quoting anyone from Hamas, or anyone qualified to put the tactical accomplishments of Palestinian insurgents since 1948 into perspective. Also, if he’s referring to the FAA’s 48-hour ban on flights into LLBG, that was merely one of several temporarily heightened flight restrictions as part of the FAA’s effort to close the regulatory barn door behind Malaysian Air 17.

The official “Full Spectrum Dominance” policy explains why there is all this aggression and calls for even more. It’s a duopoly position now, with only minor differences between “HAWKS” and “hawks” as to how quickly and what levelof hostility vs. covert action will best move the donorist class into an impregnable financial and military hegemony. The confusion is only in the bamboozled public’s minds, which suffer cognitive dissonance between the overt justifications of “democracy” and “freedom” versus the actual realities of coercion and impoverishment.

So the news cycle shows foreign countries dealing with death and disaster on a daily basis and the US is not (directly) involved.

I guess after 10 years of A-stan, Iraq, and Al Qaeda offshoot of the day fear mongering, the chickenhawks are not accustomed to seeing the US NOT knee deep in some crud with US citizens getting killed for another ungrateful country that does not want us “there” in the first place, as if that is a bad thing.

If terrorist are going to target the US for NOT fighting someone else’s war so be it, that is risk everyone in the world faces everyday.

The US has garnered enough hatred/schadenfreude externally that any schmuck will make a justification to attack US citizens and taragets.

We have enough domestic terrorists, school shooters, workplace violence, mass shooters etc to deal with anyways.

In the words of the late Tony Judt, Walter Russell Mead was (at best) one of the useful idiots who supported Bush’s invasion of Iraq. Mead’s alleged expertise is foreign policy, yet he supported the most disastrous American foreign policy action in history. Interestingly, the majority of regional scholars in the US who focused upon the Middle East and the majority of International Relations scholars opposed the invasion. Mead therefore stood out in his stupidity. If he had any honor, he would shut-up and disappear from any type of public life (such as advocating for policy).

Mead doesn’t get it. Americans don’t care about this conflict and want to stay out of it, as the polls show. What America should do is disengage from all parties and stand off. We have no dog in these fights.

In other words, if the Us were out killing Muslims, Israel would be still or stiller —

I find the contention that Israel would in some manner be less inclined to overreact if the United States would invading Iran, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia telling. If that is the case it merely confirms that Israel must begin a process of honest brokering with her neighbors on their terms as opposed to the terms that include the long arm of the US in order to be an effective ally.

I love Israel, but she is remains a patient in need of into the world of reality in which she is exposed to the realities of nationhood.

And frankly, there are a lot of ways of provoking a fight, then feigning innocence. There are lots of psychological and physical oppressions that would evoke violence and in this regard, Israel is wholly culpable. Practices which only the most extreme pacifist would tolerate. But under which almost every other US citizen would respond with a punch in the nose.

Israel’s biggest long term problems are Gaza and the West Bank. All this nonsense that if the US bombs Iran, this will somehow solve all of Israel’s problems is a red herring and pure foolishness. I wish that AIPAC would knock off this Iranian foolishness and start to address the problems of Gaza and the West Bank.